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Analytics and Metrics

June 23, 2008

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal Google plans to unveil a new web metrics service that measures internet usage and competing with comScore and Nielsen Online. These services gather data by using panels and conducting surveys, and many claim their results can be inconsistent and incomplete.

Google's service will be based mostly on data from their Web servers and will be offered to marketers free.

In addition, Google is expected to roll out a new tool aimed at showing how Web surfers respond to online ads. It will compare groups of people who are exposed to an ad with others who haven't seen it.

Google's new web metric tool, which will also rely on some data gleaned from panels of human users and other sources, is similar to one developed by New York-based start-up Quantcast. Given their scale Google certainly has the potential to shake up the Web-measurement business.